6 ms·

Current LEDs are pretty cheap and comparatively sustainable (to other lighting technology), but lots of LED based lighting devices ship with: - non replaceable

Current LEDs are pretty cheap and comparatively sustainable (to other lighting technology), but lots of LED based lighting devices ship with: - non replaceable batteries (flashlights) - unreliable drivers that fail before the LED does, or kill the LED by heat or excessive voltage Happy to see people working on new LED tech but the downstream effects of selling disposable stuff has to be much worse?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
WalterBright 2y ago
The life of indoor LED bulbs has improved over the years. But I learned to only install them in vented fixtures.
- zerocrates 2y ago
  It's LED fixtures that I have a problem with; they're very common since it's easy to make them in various shapes and things, but when a component fails more often than not it's a "replace the whole fixture" situation. My parents have a ceiling fan that came with an LED light, which broke. It was barely under warranty for the LED part still and the manufacturer sent out a new light module, except they've changed the fan a little over the years and the new module doesn't fit on the old fan... they ended up having to send a whole new fan.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Afaict, this is a case of the primary customer: contractors and builders. They don't care if bulbs are replaceable, since their lifetime is limited to build -> sell.
    - TylerE 2y ago
      Actually with fans specifically it has to do with legislation that requires them to not be able to mount a standard Edison bulb.
      - bfdm 2y ago
        What? Why?
        toast0 2y ago
        I'm not familiar with ceiling fan regulations, but regulations for recessed lighting (can lights) in some jurisdiction mandated connectors other than edison screws in new construction as a way to force out incandescent bulbs. IMHO, pretty unnecessary, as once the PAR30 dimmable LED bulbs got good, I don't think many people would prefer incandescent. OTOH, I think they were pushing compact fluorescent, which I don't think ever got very good. For new construction now, the LED fixtures can be mounted without a can, because they put out way less heat, and some of them are very thin, so they may not penetrate beyond the thickness of the ceiling, which is neat. But for retrofitting, putting a screw in bulb is nice and easy.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  I still have several Cree bulbs that are at least a decade old, I think more like 15 years old. None have failed. Everyone I know who complains about LED bulbs failing, you ask them and they admit to buying the cheapest ones they could find.
  - mhb 2y ago
    I have an original Philips EnduraLED that still works fine.
  - zdragnar 2y ago
    I dropped good money somewhat early on for LEDs that were supposed to last at least that long (some name brand, no idea what at this point), and I don't think I even got a year out of them. At that point, I decided to just buy the cheap ones because that was easier than dealing with the warranty process anyway.
    - TylerE 2y ago
      The trick is figuring out where in the product lifecycle you are. Early on you want to go cheap, because you’ll be able to get way better for cheaper in a year or two anyway. Later on once the technology has matured this is less true.
      - eru 2y ago
        > Later on once the technology has matured this is less true. It depends on the cost curve. When the technology has matured, the cheap ones might be good enough, too. Eg approximately all tooth pastes are equally effective, so you might as well go with the cheapest one that agrees with your taste buds.
  - NegativeLatency 2y ago
    I've found generally the more expensive ones last longer, but I just had a Phillips HUE bulb die on me (the LED is fine I think but it flashes rapidly so I'm suspecting the driver is bad)
- y33t 2y ago
  Heat is the real killer for LEDs. Most LEDs sold for home lighting do not have very good thermal regulation, possibly as a planned obsolesence "feature".
  - pkolaczk 2y ago
    Yes, even expensive Phillips LEDs heat up to 100 C. There is no way they could last the designed 50000h at that temp.
  - eru 2y ago
    Planned obsolescence only makes business sense, if you can be reasonably sure that the customer will buy from you again. The home LED market is pretty fractured and there's not all that much brand loyalty. (At least at the lower level where companies churn out lowest cost LEDs. The companies that bet on brand loyalty tend to have somewhat better quality.)
Liftyee 2y ago
Granted, there is usually a rechargeable alternative to any product using non replaceable batteries. Or one can use rechargeable AA/AAA/etc. that recoup their cost within a few charges. For the consumer rechargeable always makes sense, but I think there's an incentive for stores to not push those products - why sell rechargeable flashlights when you can sell ones that gobble alkaline cells and get your customers coming back for batteries?? Is there any way to avoid this problem besides regulation?
- NegativeLatency 2y ago
  There's a lot of 18650 compatible flashlights and stuff, but some of them have the battery sealed inside. I have a couple of bike lights and flashlights that have this issue and I've cracked them open to replace the batteries, but it's not a regular person thing to do.
- eru 2y ago
  > Is there any way to avoid this problem besides regulation? Just don't buy those, if you don't like them? > For the consumer rechargeable always makes sense, but I think there's an incentive for stores to not push those products - why sell rechargeable flashlights when you can sell ones that gobble alkaline cells and get your customers coming back for batteries?? That only works as a business if your customer comes back to you. The market for these dirt cheap devices is pretty fragmented. And people are unlikely to turn into repeat customers, if the previous gadget failed them miserably.
stephen_g 2y ago
Yeah, for parts of my house I have renovated I put in LED fixtures with separate drivers that sit up in the roof cavity, and none of them have failed (out of about a dozen lights) in the eight years since. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the house I have some older fixtures that were designed for incandescent bulbs and have been through a bunch of LED replacement bulbs for them.
- colechristensen 2y ago
  Yup. The LED diodes themselves will last for decades if treated properly, the power electronics though are very often made with extreme cut corners and the thermal design is awful meaning bulbs much more expensive and environmentally impacting than a bit of glass and milligrams of tungsten wire are failing in similar time spans. Somebody should do an environmental impact study of shitty LED bulbs vs incandescents to determine if the manufacturing impact difference makes up for the energy savings.
eternityforest 2y ago
I don't understand why there's no startups making open source modular electronics. A collection of maybe 50 well chosen modules could handle at least part of pretty much everything, while allowing for upgrades as tech improves. A microwave and a dishwasher and a dryer could all use the same controller and the same display module. A desk lamp and a flashlight could use the same LED and driver. The current modular systems are educational or hobbyist oriented, or they try to do stuff that crosses high bandwidth links and needs lots of pins, but there's not reason we can't have standard LED drivers and other simple stuff like that. The whole range of modules would probably be pretty cheap, it's just a matter of convincing everyone to use them, which I guess is why nobody does it.
- iancmceachern 2y ago
  It's because you would need open source ICs for that, and that'd a whole complex multinational tool chain. The modules you speak of exist, they're ICs. Most electronics now are just ICs and traces on a board. The real challenge is the IC tool chain is very complex and very not open. It would do no good to have open source modules that are just traces and then a bunch of closed source ICs. This is what Sparkfun, adafruit, etc. do. It's great for engineers and hobbiests but it doesn't get to the root of the value you propose. The real value is in the ICs, those are the magic modules you speak of that need to be open source. Getting that to happen is a whole thing. Like getting ExxonMobil to share their oil rig designs.
  - jononor 2y ago
    I think that open-source modules are valuable even without open-source ICs. At least for may classes of genetic IC/modules there are many vendors of an IC, so one could have multi-source for the IC, to reduce reliance on a single vendor/source. It is becoming more and more feasible to do things software-defined, with a generic microcontroller being the core IC. I would love to see some projects for DC/DC power converters for example around a microcontroller with open software. This is a bit tricky because it needs to be safe, but in theory doable. Also need to be EMC compatible, which will require a lot of testing. Generally going beyond hobbyist requires much better QA than what most current open source hardware projects are willing/capable to do. Environmental testing, EMC testing, regulatory compliance, etc. Some exceptions might be vendors like Olimex.
nottorp 2y ago
> unreliable drivers that fail before the LED does, or kill the LED by heat or excessive voltage That. I have a rather enclosed (little ventilation) ceiling fixture that in theory is supposed to be specced for up to 2 x 75 W incandescent. You'd think it will handle 2 x 9 or 12 W led "bulbs" just fine, right? It killed one averagely priced led "bulb" every 2 years until i switched to a slightly more expensive brand.
- xaldir 2y ago
  There is indeed a difference between specced for "incandescent bulbs wont start a fire" and "it's warm enough to cook the electronics of your led bulbs"
  - nottorp 2y ago
    Thing is, touching it (the enclosure not the led bulbs) with my bare hands it's just slightly warm. I wash my hands with water much hotter than that. Edit: and I just realized, the mac mini i'm mostly typing code/emails/comms on idles at less than the 2 x 12 W bulbs above it...
pjc50 2y ago
> - non replaceable batteries (flashlights) Not encountered those? You people need to get onto Aliexpress where the good stuff that takes 18650 batteries is.
rob74 2y ago
One thing I learned the hard way is that various older relays, timers, dimmers etc. will kill LED "light bulbs", but most of the time not instantly, but over several months/years. When we bought our current apartment 10 years ago, I had the common sense to replace the dimmers with newer "LED-approved" versions, and also replaced one of two relays because it was broken, but then the remaining relay over several years destroyed several "light bulbs" and one (fortunately not very expensive) lighting fixture with non-removable LEDs, until it dawned on me that the relay was to blame. After I replaced it ~ 5 years ago, no more problems.
- rockostrich 2y ago
  I think it's a good idea in general to just try and replace every switch and outlet if you buy a home that was lived in for an extended period of time. We moved into a home that the previous family lived in for 30 years and I've been working my way through replacing everything. I've found some crazy work in some of the junction boxes. Most weren't grounded which isn't super surprising. Many were wired incorrectly which is a little less surprising. Also it's a good exercise in making sure the electrical panel is labeled correctly. Ours was somehow only labeled like 75% correctly.
  - matthewdgreen 2y ago
    I replaced all the three way switches in my (100+ year old) home and found loads of ugly cloth-covered wiring and even “knob and tube” in a few places. So this was a great exercise. Unfortunately I miswired one circuit so badly that my metal chandelier became a live electrical death trap, which I only found out during the inspection when we sold the place. I cannot recommend professional electricians enough.
  - quickthrowman 2y ago
    If I bought a house I would replace every receptacle and switch with a commercial spec grade version, residential grade wiring devices are uniformly awful.
  - techdmn 2y ago
    Labeled incorrectly in Sharpie is the best! I agree, with the caveat that I have worked as an electrician professionally. Generally this is how home ownership works. You go over everything, find all the weirdness that the previous owner did, and fix it up. Years later you sell the house, and the process starts all over again. ;-)
mouse_ 2y ago
See: Bram's Law https://web.archive.org/web/20170629144859/http://www.advogato.org/person/Bram/diary/68.html https://web.archive.org/web/20170629144859/http://www.advoga... > The easier a piece of software is to write, the worse it's implemented in practice. In this case, as LEDs become easier and more accessable to implement, they are implemented worse in practice.
superkuh 2y ago
It doesn't even have to be unrelible/cheap drivers that fail. Even name brand Cree/Phillips/etc stuff have drivers that will fail rather quickly if your wall current is at all dirty. The effect of this is LED lightbulbs that have a shorter lifetime than incandescent lightbulbs did in my apartment. At least incandescent and halogen bulbs were just a bit of glass and wire: explicitly disposable. But LED bulbs are full of parts and boards and the like and generate far more waste.
saturn8601 2y ago
Maybe someone can answer this question for me but I have yet to find a LED bulb that can replicate the 'full spectrum' aka sunlight feeling of a Halogen bulb. I just love the color warmth of Halogen and LED just can't seem to replicate it. I have have bought a lot of LED bulbs in search of this. Is there something that I am missing or is LED just not capable of producing the same spectrum of color as Halogen? When I look at my items under LED and then look at them under Halogen its like the items become vivid. The best I could find is this company called "Waveform Lighting" that sells very high CRI bulbs for like ~$20 a bulb (with the second place being Soraa bulbs) both are some of the best LED bulbs I've used but no where near the effect of Halogen. What am I doing wrong?
- trox 2y ago
  Maybe you find this interesting: https://optimizeyourbiology.com/light-bulb-database https://optimizeyourbiology.com/light-bulb-database It's a database of light bulbs tested using a 1-meter barium sulfate integration sphere and calibrated lumen photospectrometer. Although no LED comes close to the Halogen in terms of CRI, it is very informative.
  - saturn8601 2y ago
    Wow, thank you for this resource!

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

WalterBright 2y ago

The life of indoor LED bulbs has improved over the years. But I learned to only install them in vented fixtures.

zerocrates 2y ago
It's LED fixtures that I have a problem with; they're very common since it's easy to make them in various shapes and things, but when a component fails more often than not it's a "replace the whole fixture" situation. My parents have a ceiling fan that came with an LED light, which broke. It was barely under warranty for the LED part still and the manufacturer sent out a new light module, except they've changed the fan a little over the years and the new module doesn't fit on the old fan... they ended up having to send a whole new fan.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Afaict, this is a case of the primary customer: contractors and builders. They don't care if bulbs are replaceable, since their lifetime is limited to build -> sell.
  - TylerE 2y ago
    Actually with fans specifically it has to do with legislation that requires them to not be able to mount a standard Edison bulb.
    - bfdm 2y ago
      What? Why?
      - toast0 2y ago
        I'm not familiar with ceiling fan regulations, but regulations for recessed lighting (can lights) in some jurisdiction mandated connectors other than edison screws in new construction as a way to force out incandescent bulbs. IMHO, pretty unnecessary, as once the PAR30 dimmable LED bulbs got good, I don't think many people would prefer incandescent. OTOH, I think they were pushing compact fluorescent, which I don't think ever got very good. For new construction now, the LED fixtures can be mounted without a can, because they put out way less heat, and some of them are very thin, so they may not penetrate beyond the thickness of the ceiling, which is neat. But for retrofitting, putting a screw in bulb is nice and easy.
KennyBlanken 2y ago
I still have several Cree bulbs that are at least a decade old, I think more like 15 years old. None have failed. Everyone I know who complains about LED bulbs failing, you ask them and they admit to buying the cheapest ones they could find.
- mhb 2y ago
  I have an original Philips EnduraLED that still works fine.
- zdragnar 2y ago
  I dropped good money somewhat early on for LEDs that were supposed to last at least that long (some name brand, no idea what at this point), and I don't think I even got a year out of them. At that point, I decided to just buy the cheap ones because that was easier than dealing with the warranty process anyway.
  - TylerE 2y ago
    The trick is figuring out where in the product lifecycle you are. Early on you want to go cheap, because you’ll be able to get way better for cheaper in a year or two anyway. Later on once the technology has matured this is less true.
    - eru 2y ago
      > Later on once the technology has matured this is less true. It depends on the cost curve. When the technology has matured, the cheap ones might be good enough, too. Eg approximately all tooth pastes are equally effective, so you might as well go with the cheapest one that agrees with your taste buds.
- NegativeLatency 2y ago
  I've found generally the more expensive ones last longer, but I just had a Phillips HUE bulb die on me (the LED is fine I think but it flashes rapidly so I'm suspecting the driver is bad)
y33t 2y ago
Heat is the real killer for LEDs. Most LEDs sold for home lighting do not have very good thermal regulation, possibly as a planned obsolesence "feature".
- pkolaczk 2y ago
  Yes, even expensive Phillips LEDs heat up to 100 C. There is no way they could last the designed 50000h at that temp.
- eru 2y ago
  Planned obsolescence only makes business sense, if you can be reasonably sure that the customer will buy from you again. The home LED market is pretty fractured and there's not all that much brand loyalty. (At least at the lower level where companies churn out lowest cost LEDs. The companies that bet on brand loyalty tend to have somewhat better quality.)

Liftyee 2y ago

Granted, there is usually a rechargeable alternative to any product using non replaceable batteries. Or one can use rechargeable AA/AAA/etc. that recoup their cost within a few charges. For the consumer rechargeable always makes sense, but I think there's an incentive for stores to not push those products - why sell rechargeable flashlights when you can sell ones that gobble alkaline cells and get your customers coming back for batteries?? Is there any way to avoid this problem besides regulation?

NegativeLatency 2y ago
There's a lot of 18650 compatible flashlights and stuff, but some of them have the battery sealed inside. I have a couple of bike lights and flashlights that have this issue and I've cracked them open to replace the batteries, but it's not a regular person thing to do.
eru 2y ago
> Is there any way to avoid this problem besides regulation? Just don't buy those, if you don't like them? > For the consumer rechargeable always makes sense, but I think there's an incentive for stores to not push those products - why sell rechargeable flashlights when you can sell ones that gobble alkaline cells and get your customers coming back for batteries?? That only works as a business if your customer comes back to you. The market for these dirt cheap devices is pretty fragmented. And people are unlikely to turn into repeat customers, if the previous gadget failed them miserably.

stephen_g 2y ago

Yeah, for parts of my house I have renovated I put in LED fixtures with separate drivers that sit up in the roof cavity, and none of them have failed (out of about a dozen lights) in the eight years since. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the house I have some older fixtures that were designed for incandescent bulbs and have been through a bunch of LED replacement bulbs for them.

colechristensen 2y ago
Yup. The LED diodes themselves will last for decades if treated properly, the power electronics though are very often made with extreme cut corners and the thermal design is awful meaning bulbs much more expensive and environmentally impacting than a bit of glass and milligrams of tungsten wire are failing in similar time spans. Somebody should do an environmental impact study of shitty LED bulbs vs incandescents to determine if the manufacturing impact difference makes up for the energy savings.

eternityforest 2y ago

I don't understand why there's no startups making open source modular electronics. A collection of maybe 50 well chosen modules could handle at least part of pretty much everything, while allowing for upgrades as tech improves. A microwave and a dishwasher and a dryer could all use the same controller and the same display module. A desk lamp and a flashlight could use the same LED and driver. The current modular systems are educational or hobbyist oriented, or they try to do stuff that crosses high bandwidth links and needs lots of pins, but there's not reason we can't have standard LED drivers and other simple stuff like that. The whole range of modules would probably be pretty cheap, it's just a matter of convincing everyone to use them, which I guess is why nobody does it.

iancmceachern 2y ago
It's because you would need open source ICs for that, and that'd a whole complex multinational tool chain. The modules you speak of exist, they're ICs. Most electronics now are just ICs and traces on a board. The real challenge is the IC tool chain is very complex and very not open. It would do no good to have open source modules that are just traces and then a bunch of closed source ICs. This is what Sparkfun, adafruit, etc. do. It's great for engineers and hobbiests but it doesn't get to the root of the value you propose. The real value is in the ICs, those are the magic modules you speak of that need to be open source. Getting that to happen is a whole thing. Like getting ExxonMobil to share their oil rig designs.
- jononor 2y ago
  I think that open-source modules are valuable even without open-source ICs. At least for may classes of genetic IC/modules there are many vendors of an IC, so one could have multi-source for the IC, to reduce reliance on a single vendor/source. It is becoming more and more feasible to do things software-defined, with a generic microcontroller being the core IC. I would love to see some projects for DC/DC power converters for example around a microcontroller with open software. This is a bit tricky because it needs to be safe, but in theory doable. Also need to be EMC compatible, which will require a lot of testing. Generally going beyond hobbyist requires much better QA than what most current open source hardware projects are willing/capable to do. Environmental testing, EMC testing, regulatory compliance, etc. Some exceptions might be vendors like Olimex.

nottorp 2y ago

> unreliable drivers that fail before the LED does, or kill the LED by heat or excessive voltage That. I have a rather enclosed (little ventilation) ceiling fixture that in theory is supposed to be specced for up to 2 x 75 W incandescent. You'd think it will handle 2 x 9 or 12 W led "bulbs" just fine, right? It killed one averagely priced led "bulb" every 2 years until i switched to a slightly more expensive brand.

xaldir 2y ago
There is indeed a difference between specced for "incandescent bulbs wont start a fire" and "it's warm enough to cook the electronics of your led bulbs"
- nottorp 2y ago
  Thing is, touching it (the enclosure not the led bulbs) with my bare hands it's just slightly warm. I wash my hands with water much hotter than that. Edit: and I just realized, the mac mini i'm mostly typing code/emails/comms on idles at less than the 2 x 12 W bulbs above it...

pjc50 2y ago

> - non replaceable batteries (flashlights) Not encountered those? You people need to get onto Aliexpress where the good stuff that takes 18650 batteries is.

rob74 2y ago

One thing I learned the hard way is that various older relays, timers, dimmers etc. will kill LED "light bulbs", but most of the time not instantly, but over several months/years. When we bought our current apartment 10 years ago, I had the common sense to replace the dimmers with newer "LED-approved" versions, and also replaced one of two relays because it was broken, but then the remaining relay over several years destroyed several "light bulbs" and one (fortunately not very expensive) lighting fixture with non-removable LEDs, until it dawned on me that the relay was to blame. After I replaced it ~ 5 years ago, no more problems.

rockostrich 2y ago
I think it's a good idea in general to just try and replace every switch and outlet if you buy a home that was lived in for an extended period of time. We moved into a home that the previous family lived in for 30 years and I've been working my way through replacing everything. I've found some crazy work in some of the junction boxes. Most weren't grounded which isn't super surprising. Many were wired incorrectly which is a little less surprising. Also it's a good exercise in making sure the electrical panel is labeled correctly. Ours was somehow only labeled like 75% correctly.
- matthewdgreen 2y ago
  I replaced all the three way switches in my (100+ year old) home and found loads of ugly cloth-covered wiring and even “knob and tube” in a few places. So this was a great exercise. Unfortunately I miswired one circuit so badly that my metal chandelier became a live electrical death trap, which I only found out during the inspection when we sold the place. I cannot recommend professional electricians enough.
- quickthrowman 2y ago
  If I bought a house I would replace every receptacle and switch with a commercial spec grade version, residential grade wiring devices are uniformly awful.
- techdmn 2y ago
  Labeled incorrectly in Sharpie is the best! I agree, with the caveat that I have worked as an electrician professionally. Generally this is how home ownership works. You go over everything, find all the weirdness that the previous owner did, and fix it up. Years later you sell the house, and the process starts all over again. ;-)

mouse_ 2y ago

See: Bram's Law https://web.archive.org/web/20170629144859/http://www.advogato.org/person/Bram/diary/68.html https://web.archive.org/web/20170629144859/http://www.advoga... > The easier a piece of software is to write, the worse it's implemented in practice. In this case, as LEDs become easier and more accessable to implement, they are implemented worse in practice.

superkuh 2y ago

It doesn't even have to be unrelible/cheap drivers that fail. Even name brand Cree/Phillips/etc stuff have drivers that will fail rather quickly if your wall current is at all dirty. The effect of this is LED lightbulbs that have a shorter lifetime than incandescent lightbulbs did in my apartment. At least incandescent and halogen bulbs were just a bit of glass and wire: explicitly disposable. But LED bulbs are full of parts and boards and the like and generate far more waste.

saturn8601 2y ago

Maybe someone can answer this question for me but I have yet to find a LED bulb that can replicate the 'full spectrum' aka sunlight feeling of a Halogen bulb. I just love the color warmth of Halogen and LED just can't seem to replicate it. I have have bought a lot of LED bulbs in search of this. Is there something that I am missing or is LED just not capable of producing the same spectrum of color as Halogen? When I look at my items under LED and then look at them under Halogen its like the items become vivid. The best I could find is this company called "Waveform Lighting" that sells very high CRI bulbs for like ~$20 a bulb (with the second place being Soraa bulbs) both are some of the best LED bulbs I've used but no where near the effect of Halogen. What am I doing wrong?

trox 2y ago
Maybe you find this interesting: https://optimizeyourbiology.com/light-bulb-database https://optimizeyourbiology.com/light-bulb-database It's a database of light bulbs tested using a 1-meter barium sulfate integration sphere and calibrated lumen photospectrometer. Although no LED comes close to the Halogen in terms of CRI, it is very informative.
- saturn8601 2y ago
  Wow, thank you for this resource!